Do you experience anxiety in social situations that can be overwhelming or even debilitating? Is it affecting your social life, work, relationships – your everyday happiness? If so, this article is for you.
Asking what the function of your shyness is might seem a strange question – you didn’t choose it, right? Yet exploring the function of shyness can open up new ways of understanding and, ultimately, relieving it.
First, let’s consider the experience of shyness.
Before a social event with friends or family, do you feel intense anxiety and find yourself making any excuse not to go?
Or if you do go, maybe you experience symptoms such as a racing heart, sweaty palms, a mind teetering on all-out panic? When asked to speak, do you freeze or stumble, then blush and feel humiliated? And all the while, is your internal critic attacking you for being a failure? For many people, these symptoms are a daily reality.
At the heart of shyness lies the fear of being judged by others. This fear often shows up as self-consciousness, low self-esteem, self-defeating comparison to extroverts, and hypervigilance – constantly scanning the environment for potential threats.
A word about introversion, which shyness is often confused with. At a surface level, the two can seem similar: being quiet in the company of others or preferring time alone. However, just as extroverts seek company to feel energised, introverts feel overstimulated by social interaction and therefore recover their energy through spending time alone. Shyness, in contrast, is rooted in fear of judgement.
How shyness develops: cause and function
Two factors typically contribute to the development of shyness: biological and environmental.
Although people who suffer from shyness may have more sensitive temperaments, this is only a contributing factor. The deeper origins are often environmental – rooted in childhood experiences of judgement and criticism – whether from parents, teachers, or peers. When the environment fails to provide emotional safety, children can internalise the belief that connection is dangerous or unattainable. This creates a damaging cycle of seeking connection while, at the same time, believing connection is impossible.
Growing up in a hostile or critical environment, you are likely to have unconsciously developed shyness as a self-protective strategy. Its function was to keep your vulnerable self safe and away from those you feared might harm or humiliate you. You stayed hidden, kept a low profile, avoided speaking first, were cautious about what you revealed. This defensive strategy partly worked by keeping you out of harm’s way, but it also came with significant costs.
The cost of the shyness: shame and disconnection
A major cost of shyness is the impact on your self-image. Conditioned to expect negative judgements, you may feel fundamentally ‘less than’ others, deficient in some deep, unconscious way. This difficult-to-bear wound can be referred to as ‘relational shame’: learned in early relationships, this is a feeling of unworthiness that you’ll do anything to avoid. And unfortunately, this relational pattern is likely to be re-triggered in present-day social interactions, again and again.
The other significant cost is disconnection. We humans need connection with others just as we need food to survive. Yet the very defence that seeks to protect you also blocks you from the very relationships you long for. Now, as an adult, this historic pattern continues to cut you off from nourishing, validating connections with others, often leaving you feeling unseen and isolated.
How therapy might help
Because shyness originated in relationship, relational psychotherapy is a natural setting to understand and change the patterns that maintain it. Therapy offers a safe space where past wounds can be explored and understood, enabling a more open and confident way of relating to others to develop.
Self-esteem is another key focus: uncovering childhood messages that conditioned your expectation of negative judgement. Through compassion and curiosity, you can begin to see how you sought the approval of others while fearing them at the same time. Through therapy, you gradually build a stronger sense of self and a greater trust in your self-worth.
Originally an unconscious protection against hostile judgement, shyness can be therapeutically worked with and transformed. You can unlearn relational patterns that have held you back, as you meaningfully connect with others and a more authentic and self-accepting version of yourself emerges.
To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Thad Hickman, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.
Thad is an experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor and a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). He works long-term with individuals in our Lewes and Brighton and Hove practices.
Further reading by Thad Hickman –
The cost of hiding your vulnerability: why emotional strength begins with openness
When life shifts without warning: finding your way through unwanted transitions
